What is cheapest hard drive option for the A500?

[Fuzzball]

I am looking for a cheap option to add a hard drive to an Amiga 500. There seems to be a lot of options out there but where I am struggling is whether there are any that require no soldering at all. I have no soldering iron or soldering skills and there is no way I'd use one on a A500 as I would probably damage it. Also some seem to require accelerator boards and memory upgrades so it is all a bit of a minefield for someone who just had a vanilla A500 back in the day with an external hard drive (that just worked).

Are there any cheap options that require zero soldering?

[fgh]

You can add an ide controller to the cpu socket.
There are options with and without RAM.

Look up IDE68k or MKL.

(These cheap versions need a modified (or a600) kickstart to be bootable)

[Fuzzball]

Originally Posted by fgh

You can add an ide controller to the cpu socket.
There are options with and without RAM.

Look up IDE68k or MKL.

(These cheap versions need a modified kickstart to be bootable)

Thanks very much for that. I have seen so many mods but had missed that one. Although it uses 2 "pin grabbers" I see people do recommend soldering them as they often come off. So that is a concern.

I am actually considering a A600 instead as it will be less hassle. I don't actually own any Amiga at the moment and the A500 was the only one I owned back in the day so that's the one with the nostalgia factor. But a A600 may be less hassle as it has IDE built in and the A1200 is far too expensive for me.

[d4rk3lf]

I can really recommend Aca 500+ card, if your budget can afford it.

It has acceleration, but I couldn't care less about that, my main point of getting one is having HD on my Amiga 500, and have easy time transferring apps from my PC to my Amiga. Also, where important is that it fully supports WHDLoad (which is very rare option for Amiga 500).
Another very cool stuff is that it have Workbench 1.3 and 3.0 in the rom. So whenever you want you can install WB on an empty CF card with no hassle at all.
You get additional 7MB of fast Ram.
Processor is 68k, like in Amiga 500, but it can run up to 48Mhz (by default it's 14Mhz), and will make your Amiga 500 (when you play Frontier or Wing Commander, more demanding type of games), running on the speed something like A1200.

It's plugged externally, so you never need to open your Amiga.

[DisasterIncarna]

isnt the pistorm kinda the go-to for stuff like this with the extra benefits on top?

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Fuzzball

TI am actually considering a A600 instead as it will be less hassle. I don't actually own any Amiga at the moment and the A500 was the only one I owned back in the day so that's the one with the nostalgia factor. But a A600 may be less hassle as it has IDE built in and the A1200 is far too expensive for me.

You can get A1200s cheap if you look long enough and are prepared to buy one that needs collecting and needs to be refurbished. I bought mine for under £200 and then spent another £60 getting it recapped and £100 on a Pistorm32 Lite.

A600s are highly collected these days compared to the number sold, you'll pay more for A600 than the price of an A500+HDD adapter. A600s also can be prone to needed a recap.

If you hunt, someone will be selling A500 HDD controller cheap because lots of A500 users upgraded to PiStorm. MKL interface is the cheapest but needs two solders / clips. Maybe look for an A590 or GVP HD8+ or maybe consider PiStorm.

Originally Posted by DisasterIncarna

isnt the pistorm kinda the go-to for stuff like this with the extra benefits on top?

Certainly is. They can be had for as little as £80. Fastest A500 HDD implementation (+20MB/s), 128MB RAM, 060 like acceleration, RTG 2D gfx card, Wifi network controller potential in the future for 3D gfx card, sound card etc. but it also transforms the Amiga into a completely different experience. If nostalgia is what you're after then maybe this isn't the right solution.

[dreadnought]

I can second ACA 500+ recommendation, it's an amazing add on. But at 160 Euros certainly not cheap. That said, if you factor in all the other expenses (A600 + some other solution) you might be not far off that price anyway.

Another thing to consider is that if you want to run WHDLoad to full effect, some simple solution might be not enough. ACA 500+ takes care of these things though. I'm not an expert though so maybe somebody else can explain it better (having enough chip ram, etc).

[Fuzzball]

Thanks for all the info. The ACA500+ is very pricey but I think that would be the best option especially as it is external. I would definitely want a case for it though. Just having that board hanging off the side looks terrible.

[Marchie]

If you have a parallel port Zip drive lying around you can use that.

You need a custom cable, but it’s still possibly the cheapest option…

[Jope]

Originally Posted by fgh

(These cheap versions need a modified kickstart to be bootable)

Only if you want to continue running 1.3.

A600 versions of 2.05 37.300 and newer releases have the driver built in.

[Tajmaster]

These will give you 8MB RAM and IDE:

https://amigastore.eu/929-ide68k-got...stram-8mb.html

Then you just need to add a Compact Flash card, configured as you like. There are loads of tutorials on YouTube on how to use a PC to set up the CF card such as:

[ Show youtube player ]

This will give you a basic Workbench install on your CF card. Just add WHDLoad and games and you're good to go. There are also tutorials on YouTube on how to do this too.

Probably best to upgrade your Kickstart ROM at the same time (I use 3.1 on mine, no point using the newer 3.2 on a standard A500 and if its just for nostalgia)

[Bruce Abbott]

8MB RAM IDE 68000 CPU Slot Amiga 500

[Fuzzball]

Thanks for everyone's input. A few questions. Why would I need to upgrade kickstart to 3.1? I had a hard drive with my A500 back in the day and never changed it from 1.3. I only ever installed games on it though that came with hard drive installers like Monkey Island.

I don't think I can be bothered with WHDLoad. I never used it back then and I am too old to be learning new tricks now so happy just to use it as I did back then. For that reason I suspect the ACA500Plus is a bit overkill (and expensive) so will look at the cheaper options.

[dreadnought]

I guess it boils down to what percentage of games do you expect to be able to run from HDD. If you want to cover all the major releases then WHDL is a must, but if you're ok with just some (not sure how many hdd installs are there, heard that quite a lot thou) then cheaper solution will be fine.

[Fuzzball]

I think my opinion is if I wanted WHDL and therefore a ACA500Plus, at that price I might as well start looking at the A600 or A1200 which already support IDE. I don't own the A500 yet - I'm just looking at what options I would want with one to work out total cost.

I never owned an A600 or A1200 so that's why I am leaning towards the A500 but I think it might be worthwhile considering them and working out what the cost difference ends up being.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Fuzzball

I think my opinion is if I wanted WHDL and therefore a ACA500Plus, at that price I might as well start looking at the A600 or A1200 which already support IDE. I don't own the A500 yet - I'm just looking at what options I would want with one to work out total cost.

I never owned an A600 or A1200 so that's why I am leaning towards the A500 but I think it might be worthwhile considering them and working out what the cost difference ends up being.

Imho.. A1200 yes, A600 No
A1200 is really all around comp, and very expandable.
A600 don't have numeric keyboard, and you will still need some expansions to be able to use whdload in full, so I would always choose A500+Aca 500 plus over A600.
With Aca 500+ you will get speed something like A1200, and you will have tons of fast ram.

[fgh]

The most budget friendly way back into real amiga hardware is a plain a500 with a gotek drive.
But as you had a HDD back in the day, you’re probably not happy with just floppies/floppy images.

The cheap CPU socket IDE expansions are clones of the a600/1200 IDE interface, and need a driver in the kickstart ROM which the a500 ROM doesn’t have. You can use an A600 ROM (v2.05 or 3.1), or burn/buy a custom 1.3 kickstart EPROM containing the driver.

WHDload needs KS2.05 or newer but with 1.3 you can still use JST, which is now able to run many WHD slaves. RAM requirements will be lower with KS1.3 as you don’t have to softkick 1.3. But I think you still want 1MB CHIP ram, and on a500, some modification is required for that.

If you haven’t already, you can always check out the ‘modern’ WHDload experience by downloading ‘Amiga Game Selector’ or a similar ready made image, and use it for free on your PC/Mac, or get a second hand amiga 500 mini.

If you’ll end up wanting the full whdload setup with a fancy souped up workbench, 2MB CHIP ram is another thing to consider.
Most WHD games will work with 1MB chip, but you’ll be more comfortable with 2MB. An A500 can only be modified to have 1MB chip unless you get a very expensive 2MB chip expansion with a new agnus chip. A500+ and 600 come with the 2MB agnus chip and can use a much cheaper chip RAM expansion.

I started with an a500 back in the day, but started again in 2010 with a 7mHz a600 with 2+4mb RAM and SD card. I set it up with all the WHDLoad games and it worked just fine. I didn’t miss the full keyboard.

But of course I ended up with several big box 060 machines in the end.
You might end up with a fancier setup as well, but you’ll probably appreciate it more if you tried it ‘the hard way’ first

[Fuzzball]

From what I have read, 1Mb chip ram requires a cut to the motherboard and some soldering. Both of those count me out - I am not messing with the hardware like that.

So I'm back to the expensive options.

[Photon]

I second everyone's input, except the PiStorm which replaces pretty much everything which might not be what you want, IDK. (And still requires opening the Amiga, see practical points below.) The rest I guess is a general detailed reply to harddisk solutions for the Amiga 500:

1. Harddisks are noisy, unreliable, and slow, SD has slow writes, faster-than-harddisk-speed solution must be CF. (p.s. Industrial CF cards are the best!) Do not use a HDD with your Amiga is my first recommendation in 2024
2. Sidecar means SCSI (IDE/MFM here and I'll yuck your yum). GVP etc have autoboot SCSI ROM, as do a few others, if you want an of-the-time Amiga for some purpose. Make hole for CF card if you want to transfer files. One benefit of a general SCSI solution is the many options, f.ex. removable media like 1990s magneto-optical (Zip/Jazz).
3. If you have the space for sidecar, just get the ACA500/Plus. It is the automatic best and winning solution for an A500/+. Will also let you install WB on the CF card without first solving how to transfer files over. <3
4. If you don't have the space for sidecar, the Kipper2K (IDE68K) is available for multiple platforms. There are "CF elongators" (to bring a cable out of or to the edge of a modified case), but you will need some transfer solution apart from this to not remove top case and top RF shield to transfer stuff. I also strongly recommend to replace the CPU socket with a round pin one if you go with this option!

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Fuzzball

From what I have read, 1Mb chip ram requires a cut to the motherboard and some soldering. Both of those count me out - I am not messing with the hardware like that.

So I'm back to the expensive options.

Aca 500 + will convert any slow Ram you have in your Amiga to a chip Ram + you get additional 8MB Fast Ram too.